‘More troops to South Kordofan’: Sudan security

Khartoum has sent extra Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to South Kordofan to fight the SPLM-N rebels, the director of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), Mohamed El Atta, said last Friday.The government RSF was formed at the end of last year under the command of NISS to fight rebel movements. In March, the UN Special Representative for Darfur, Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, accused the RSF of attacking civilians.The military leader of the rebel alliance, Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), Abdel Aziz El Hilu, accused the NISS for undertaking a plan in coordination with the military intelligence, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, aiming to mobilise tribal militias to fight against its forces in Blue Nile, the Nuba Mountains, North Kordofan and Darfur. He added that those militias, which include forces recruited from outside Sudan, could target civilians to displace them from rebel-held areas. “The government will cover these attacks, describing it as tribal clashes.”In a statement El Hilu added this task was assigned to a force stationed in El Fayd village in Rashad district in the Nuba Mountains, pointing the force “is commanded by Brig. Gen. Abdel Samad Babiker, Lt. Col. Mohamed El Fatih Ahmed, and Maj. Gen. Mohamed El Rabie”.The rebels said the militias, backed by aerial bombardment, shelled Tommy and El Mansour areas in South Kordofan and burned several villages, including Tommy, El Mansour, Tarawa, Kilora, Tendimen, Tagelbo, and Torai, in order to force villagers to move to government-controlled areas.The commander of the government RSF and the border guards, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, for his part denied that his force had committed war crimes or human rights abuses in the region, accusing rebel groups of seeking to tarnish their image.(Radio Dabanga, Sudan Tribune)File photo: Sudan Security Chief Mohamed Atta